Mr. Speaker, I rise to address Bill C-17 and I must oppose this bill. Bill C-17 contains a significant number of updates and improvements to the administration of law which are long overdue and the Reform Party supports this portion of the bill.
The efficiency of peace officers and courts would be aided through a number of the amendments contained within Bill C-17. Subclauses 4(6) and (7) of Bill C-17 will allow a peace officer to provide a statement of service without having to seek out a justice of the peace or notary to have the service sworn. This change will improve police officers' efficiency and reduce the workload of justices of the peace and redirect their expertise to where it is needed.
Similarly subclause 145(5) and a number of subsequent clauses of Bill C-17 will permit any peace officer to release an accused on recognizance. Currently only the officer in charge can do so. This
amendment improves police efficiency by negating the necessity to bring in the officer in charge for a mere procedural action.
Reform members support the changes in this bill that would enhance the way the police and the courts would be able to conduct their business. We also support the portion of the bill which strengthens the proceeds of crime legislation by ensuring that criminals do not retain the profits of their crimes, but we cannot support Bill C-17.
We do not support Bill C-17 because we are vehemently opposed to that portion of the bill which lessens the penalty for certain offences. That the justice minister felt it was necessary to slip this into an otherwise supportable bill is very regrettable in my eyes.
We oppose Bill C-17 because it places Canadians at risk through continued Liberal leniency. The Reform Party will only support a judicial system, and changes within that system, that places the punishment of crime and the protection of law-abiding citizens and their property ahead of all other objectives and considerations.
The justice minister has been less than forthright with Canadians about the full impact of Bill C-17. The minister has touted the merits of this bill in that it modernizes the law and streamlines court proceedings, but he has been noticeably silent about the reduction in penalties for certain very serious offences.
Although Reform supports the administrative changes contained within Bill C-17, I would be remiss if I did not say that this bill is a nebulous, inconsequential piece of legislation to the vast majority of Canadians because it will be of little significance to the enhancement of the safety of Canadians, their children and their property.
Canadians are very concerned about their personal security and that of their families. These administrative changes will do nothing to protect Canadians from the murderers, rapists and other sadistic criminals that roam our streets and enter our homes.
Bill C-17 will not stop serial child killer Clifford Olson from applying for early release. Only a bill repealing section 745 of the Criminal Code will keep Olson locked up where he belongs but the minister has not brought in a bill of this nature.
Bill C-17 will not stop Robert Noyes from sexually molesting another child. The former Ashcroft teacher admitted to abusing more than 60 children. As a dangerous offender, he was sentenced to an indefinite period of incarceration on 19 sex related charges and now the justice system is turning him loose. The National Parole Board has granted Noyes escorted temporary leave and if this goes well, in nine months he will be eligible for unescorted leave with day parole following. Only a bill like the one proposed by my colleague from Surrey-White Rock-South Langley requiring the examination of sex offenders by two psychiatrists will keep people like this locked up where they belong.
Bill C-17 will not alleviate Canadian parents' fears that their children could be abducted, sexually molested or killed in any one of our communities or on our streets. The justice minister's news release at the time of the introduction of this bill stated these amendments illustrate further progress on the government's safe home, safe streets agenda. That is absolute nonsense. It is simply not true. How do you make safer streets and safer homes by reducing the penalties for crimes such as the forcible confinement of individuals and being unlawfully in their homes? I simply do not see it.
Canadians want substantive change within the justice system. They want legislation that effectively enhances public safety. They want legislation that sends a clear message to criminals that if you are going to commit the crime you must serve the time. Canadians want this legislation in the hope that it will deter ruthless thieves from entering and destroying the sanctity of their homes. Canadians want a bill which repeals section 745 of the Criminal Code. They want the Minister of Justice to vote in favour of victims and victims' rights. They do not want a minister that upholds and protects the rights of criminals to the detriment of the law-abiding, peace loving citizen.
Last year the minister voted against private member's Bill C-26, which would have extinguished the right of first degree murderers to a parole eligibility hearing after serving only 15 years of a life sentence. Canadians do not want the minister giving killers this so-called glimmer of hope. They want killers behind bars and they want them there for a minimum of 25 years as the law originally intended; not 15 years and not 20 years. Canadians overwhelmingly want murderers behind bars for the full length of their life sentences.
What is the value of a human life to the justice minister, the Prime Minister, the Liberal government? Is it just 15 years? That is what they are telling the people of Canada. They are telling Canadians their laws are enhancing public safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
August 12, the day Clifford Olson is eligible to apply for a parole eligibility hearing, is rapidly approaching and the minister still has not introduced a bill which will deny this serial child killer the right of appeal after serving just 15 years of a life sentence. That is how this justice minister is getting tough on crime. That is how he is making our streets and our homes safer.
Olson is not the only murderer with a glimmer of hope to get out before serving his full sentence. Ralph Ernest Malcolm Power is eligible July 10 to apply for early parole on his first degree murder conviction. In 1981, 28-year old Power, an ex-con out on mandatory supervision, beat 20-year old Sheryl Gardner's face to a bloody
pulp with a hammer. He confessed that he was attempting to stun her just a little so he could rape her. Power was arrested for the murder of Sheryl after attempting to kill another woman.
The Minister of Justice should have brought in a bill that would keep Clifford Olson, Ralph Power and many others behind bars. Why is the Minister of Justice not listening to the victims of violence and the Canadian Police Association? Why has the minister not repealed section 45 of the Criminal Code? The Minister of Justice should be dealing with crime first and then administrative matters, not vice versa.
In the wake of the horrific crimes against Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, capital punishment is resurfacing as a major issue with Canadians. The evidence is growing that if Canadians were given the opportunity to vote in a binding referendum on capital punishment, an initiative supported by the Reform Party, Canadians would choose to sentence our most ruthless and sadistic killers, like Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson, to death. The Liberal government refuses to give Canadians this right and this opportunity.
Canadians also want the Minister of Justice to bring in dangerous offender legislation. They want the minister to end statutory release. They want the minister to end the automatic release of prisoners after serving only two-thirds of their sentences even when signs indicate these people will commit further crimes. Melanie Carpenter who was kidnapped, raped and murdered is one of the latest victims of this kind of Liberal thinking and mentality.
The minister has promised to bring in an omnibus bill which will encompass these two initiatives, initiatives which would significantly enhance public safety, but we have yet to see the bill. Instead, all we have been given in the last year is Bill C-2 and Bill C-42 which amend the Judges Act, Bill C-9 which reinstituted the law commission, and now Bill C-17.
Bill C-27, which we support because it deals with child prostitution and stalking, should have pre-empted all of these bills. All Bills C-2, C-42, C-9 and now C-17 do is make life a little easier for those involved in the justice system. They do not and will not make Canadians safer.
In fact, Bill C-17 will give Canadians more reason to be concerned about home invasions because the Liberal government, through Bill C-17, has lessened the punishment for this Criminal Code offence. Bill C-17 reduces maximum sentences and changes strictly indictable offences to dual procedure offences.
The redesignation of offences from indictable to dual procedure permits and encourages judges to consider those offences as less serious and therefore permissive of lesser punishment to include mere financial penalties. While most of these offences are non-violent, with the exception of forcible confinement, they involve intrusion into the sanctity of our homes and forgery which may deprive our most vulnerable citizens, our seniors, of valuable financial assets.
According to Statistics Canada, in 1994 break and enter accounted for 15 per cent of all Criminal Code offences while 25 per cent of all Criminal Code offences were for property offences. Eighty-one per cent of break and enters involved forced entry. Property was damaged in 71 per cent of the cases and property was stolen in 81 per cent of cases.
Instead of expressing concern and outrage over these figures, the Liberal government is now saying these offences deserve a lesser penalty. These offences, which infringe on the financial and mental security of Canadian citizens, are going to be dealt with more leniently because of Bill C-17.
Unbeknownst to Canadians, the Liberal government has been slowly moving in this direction over the course of its mandate, a direction we are opposed to because not only has it not been sanctioned by Canadians, it may very well lead to an increase in crime, not a reduction, which is what we in this party, as most Canadians, seek.
A shift of this magnitude in how we punish-or should I say in a politically correct manner, how we hold criminals accountable for their actions-should be reviewed and then approved by the public. Bill C-41 which passed a year ago introduced alternative to incarceration. This portion of Bill C-41 was overshadowed by the hate crime part of the bill which gave an added protection under the law to a category of citizens, including those classified by sexual orientation.
If asked today I am confident very few Canadians would known that the Liberal government has provided the means for a whole host of criminals, including sex and other violent offenders, to do community work rather than spend time in jail.
It is most unfortunate Canadians were not aware of the full scope of Bill C-41 which was described by the Canadian Police Association in the following manner: "Bill C-41 with few exceptions is unwieldy, complicated, internally self-contradictory, duplicitous and what is worse in all of it, completely unnecessary for anyone of any knowledge of or use for the common law heritage of Canada".
The police went on to say: "While it would attempt to codify basic sentencing principles, eliminating this most basic judicial discretion at that the same time it would bestow huge new discretionary powers to a whole range of persons within the justice system. The common thread in those new powers is that all are to the benefit of the offender in the sense of non-custodial consequences for criminal actions.
"Where sentencing reform calls for protection this bill offers platitudes, where it calls for clarity it offers confusion and outright hypocrisy. It will almost certainly cause the already skyrocketing criminal justice budget to expand further still."
That was a statement made to the standing committee on Bill C-41. I could not have better summarized this Liberal justice bill nor the mentality or thinking behind it which is reflected again in Bill C-17. What better words to use than those of the Canadian Police Association, an authority to which the justice minister readily turned to add credence to his gun registration bill.
Section 717 of Bill C-41, the Liberal's response to the overcrowding in Canadian prisons, was the most contentious part of the bill. Rather than attempt to reduce or prevent crime by dealing with the causes of crime, something Reform has been urging the government to do, the Liberals have decided to turn prisoners loose, a sentiment which has been echoed by the former head of corrections services, Mr. John Edwards and the head of the parole board, Mr. Willie Gibbs.
We would not have objected so vehemently to this section of Bill C-41 if the government had specified which offences may be applicable to alternative measures. We could support the use of alternative measures for specific non-violent offences to reduce expensive court proceedings and incarceration. However, no such specifications appeared in Bill C-41.
The Canadian Police Association and the Victims of Violence recommended section 717 be amended to "restrict the availability of the program to persons who have committed less serious offences and first time offenders". Specifically reflecting the opinions expressed by these witnesses, the Reform Party introduced an amendment during the clause by clause consideration of that bill to limit the use of alternative measures to non-violent offences. Our amendment was defeated by the Liberal majority on that committee.
Alternative measures have been used for years by police officers in this country. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has cautioned the police to restrictively use their discretion in dealing with offenders.
Fearing they could be violating an offender's right, the police are strictly playing by the book in many cases in arresting, charging and finally convicting an offender, whereas before if they picked someone up for a minor violation, they may have dealt with the matter informally, providing only a stern warning and exposing to them the threat of being charged the next time should they violate the law again.
I agree with the Canadian Police Association. We cannot limit police discretion in this area by creating an expensive unnecessary bureaucracy, such as that imposed by Bill C-41, which will potentially allow violent offenders to go free under the guise of alternatives to incarceration.
We cannot lessen the penalty for criminal offences as proposed by the justice minister in Bill C-17 and say to the people we are getting tougher on crime.
I draw to the attention of the House the sections of Bill C-17 which make it impossible for Reform to support this bill, a very small portion of an otherwise supportable bill.
The existing laws dealing with forceful confinement of a human being makes this offence an indictable offence with a maximum sentence of 10 years which classifies this as a very serious offence. If Bill C-17 passes unamended the severity of this offence will be lowered significantly. The maximum penalty will still be 10 years. However, it will become a dual procedure offence which may be processed by either indictment or summary conviction.
This means that under a summary conviction procedure this offence can be reduced to a maximum sentence of 18 months or only a fine of up to $2,000. The criminals who held in confinement a B.C. woman who was nine months pregnant could receive as little as a fine under this new amendment.
Is this making our streets and communities safer? I do not see it. I do not understand how. This Criminal Code amendment clearly signals to the courts this type of offence is to be treated in a less severe manner than is currently the case.
Admittedly, the Liberals may argue, the decision on whether to proceed by indictment or by summary conviction is made by the crown. The courts will undoubtedly be influenced by this downward trend in sentencing.
Section 348(1)(e) of the Criminal Code regarding breaking and entering for places other than a dwelling house will also be changed to a dual procedure offence. The maximum sentence will be reduced from 14 years to 10 years under indictment. Not only that, it can be tried by summary conviction with a maximum penalty of 18 months or simply a fine. What does this say to society? What does it say to the criminal element?
The offence of being unlawfully in a dwelling house, Criminal Code section 349(1), has also been changed to dual procedure with imprisonment up to 10 years or processed by summary conviction, again with a maximum penalty of 18 months or simply a fine.
Currently unlawfully being in a dwelling house is an indictable offence with a maximum imprisonment of up to 10 years. This is another downward trend in sentencing and flies in the face of the statement made by the justice minister that he is getting tough on crime.
Similarly, section 367 of the code regarding forgery and section 368(1), uttering forged documents, will be amended to dual procedure offences with imprisonment of up to 10 years or processed by summary conviction whereas the current punishment is indictable only with the imprisonment of up to 14 years. This is another unacceptable downward trend in sentencing that lessens
the penalty for serious crime which will not be lost on those who prey on innocent people.
Canada is faced with rising crime rates, particularly violent crime, rising fears regarding personal safety, escalating costs to administer justice and to house prisoners and, to top it all off, a growing debt which severely limits spending. The task of the federal Minister of Justice to deal with these problems in unison will be difficult but not insurmountable.
Bill C-17 is not at this time part of the answer. It does not address the increase in crime in Canada and it does absolutely nothing to confront the cause of crime.
Bill C-17 if enacted unamended will lend itself to an increase, not a decrease, in crime thereby threatening, not enhancing, public safety.
Bill C-17 is living proof the justice minister does not-I say this with respect-seem to know what he is doing. On one hand he states he will get tougher on crime, that he will make our streets and homes safer when what he is actually doing is making it easier on criminals by reducing penalties. I cannot do anything other than oppose Bill C-17.